Deciphering Meat Labels

(whew! Been gone awhile!)
Here(down the page a ways) is a helpful article explaining all the various labels on meat these days, from the folks at CUESA.
Bottom line, as always, if you want to trust that the food you feed your family is all it claims to be - especially animal products! - get to know the people who grew/raised it.

Thai-Inspired Coconut Soup with Pork and Rice Noodles

This met with great enthusiasm at the dinner table last night. : )

I think all it's missing in the Thai department is lemongrass, which I'm not in the habit of keeping on hand.

Thai-Inspired Coconut Soup with Pork and Rice Noodles

Serves 2-3, depending on appetite

1 quart chicken broth
1 can coconut milk
about 1 inch knob of ginger, peeled with spoon, then grated with a Microplane, with about a tsp set aside for pork
1 carrot, sliced
2 large cloves garlic, sliced
1 stalk celery, sliced
about 1/3 pound ground pork
sea salt
fish sauce (simply of anchovy, salt, and sugar), to taste
1 tbsp rice vinegar
enough rice noodles* for two people
a large handful of sugar snap peas, tips chopped and strings removed
a small handful cilantro, chopped, for garnish
red pepper flakes

This can all be done in pretty rapid succession; the veggies should retain some texture. Heat the broth and coconut milk to boiling. Add ginger, garlic, and carrots, fish sauce and vinegar. Knead the pork with the tsp ginger and a little sea salt, and drop bite-sized pieces into the soup. Add water as necessary to keep it soupy. Wait a few minutes and add the pasta. When the pasta is very close to done, toss in the snap peas and cover while you get the bowls ready; the snap peas should cook only till bright green. Serve in large bowls, with cilantro and red pepper flakes sprinkled on top, to taste.

*Whenever we eat pasta, we use Tinkyada brown rice pasta. Unlike other white and even whole grain pastas, it is a whole product ~ fully available for the body. And it's tasty, with a good texture.

A late-summer variation:
Substitute cubed (unpeeled but scrubbed) sweet potatoes - or my recent favorite discovery: purple yams! - for the carrot and snap peas. Simmer in the broth until soft but still intact.
Substitute cooked brown rice for rice noodles.
Mmmm!

Mediterranean Lamburgers

Lamb might just be my favorite meat. I should say - good, well-
prepared lamb; more than once, I've ordered it out and been
disappointed with the tough gaminess of what was called lamb. We love
ground lamb from Marin Sun Farms and Highland Hills about as well as
any nice cut. It is just so flavorful and juicy!
Here is a guideline for lamburgers I've seasoned and Sealion has
fashioned and grilled several times with mouth-watering results. It
could easily be a kebab recipe, but Sealion pats them into sphere-ish
patties which don't need skewers, or aluminum foil to prevent them
from being sacrificed to the grill god. ;-)
These would go nicely with a Greek salad or a light couscous pilaf-
type dish. Tonight we grilled beets, onions, and garlic with olive
oil, seasalt and pepper. and sesame seeds. Um. Yum.

Lamburgers - makes 3 or 4 patties
Marinate 1 lb pasture-raised lamb* with
5 med garlic cloves - pressed
1tsp red pepper flakes
Juice of 1/2 a lemon

1tsp cumin and
1tsp coriander - both freshly toasted (toasting in a dry skillet
brings out the flavor!)
2+tbsp mint - minced
2+tbsp red onion - minced
Sea salt
Black pepper
Whole grain sourdough bread crumbs
Olive oil

Feta on top
Yogurt for dipping

Pat into thick, rounded patties. Grill to your liking, or fry in a
cast-iron skillet. Melt feta on top in the last minute or so.
Serve with yogurt for dipping.

*I've heard that all lamb is pastured, but it's always best to buy
from someone you trust.

Red Flannel Hash of Sorts

Another winner!

Enough for 5-6 for breakfast.

2 large red potatoes, cubed

1 large onion, chopped

2 large beets, cubed

1 large carrot, chopped to match the size of the other veggies

butter

olive oil

thyme

5 breakfast sausage links, cut into little pieces, then browned

8 eggs ~ scrambled

sea salt and pepper, to taste

(optional: leftover sauteed greens ~ beet or otherwise, reheated )

Roast the first set of ingredients in a covered baking dish at 400 till soft. I took the lid off for the last 15 minutes.

I reheated the leftover greens with the sausage in its final minutes of cooking.

Then I layered the egg, and sausage mixture on top of the roasted veggies. I highly recommend doing the chopping and cubing the night before. That makes it much easier and quicker in the morning (I'll try to remember that next time!). Colorful, hearty, and flavorful.

Lamb Tabouli Pilaf with Tahini Dressing

We have family staying with us this week, and I have made a loose menu of breakfasts and dinners so that we eat a large majority of meals here for the week. Last night I got resoundingly positive feedback on dinner (yay! ~ from a variety of "types" of eaters), so I thought it was worth sharing.

But I'm gonna make it quick because breakfast is cooking and I can't keep the masses at bay forever!

Lamb Tabouli Pilaf with Tahini Dressing

Enough for 6 for dinner, plus leftovers for a few people as a snack the next day!

1 lb ground lamb with salt and pepper, browned

1 1/2 cups brown rice

1/2 cup quinoa

beef stock

large can chick peas (other beans are worth soaking ahead. but i buy canned chickpeas.)

1 block of dry cow's milk feta, crumbled small

1 bunch parsley ~ minced

1 "bunch" peppermint (from garden), minced

1 "bunch" lemon balm (from garden), minced

2 Tbsp minced red onion (I hate raw onion, but I thought it was appropriate..)

freshly toasted cumin, ground

sea salt and pepper to taste

juice of 3/4 a lemon

dressing:

whole milk yogurt

about 1/2 cup freshly toasted sesame seeds, ground in coffee grinder

olive oil

3 cloves garlic, pressed

more of the toasted cumin, ground

smoked paprika

sea salt

juice of 1/4 a lemon

Cooked the rice and quinoa together with 2 cups beef broth as part of the liquid. I let the meat and grains cool to about room temp, and tossed everything together in a big bowl.

Sorry I don't have measurements for the dressing. I probably used 1 1/2 cup of yogurt, and 1/4 cup (good) olive oil to make a thick creamy dressing. We used a lot of the dressing, so don't hold back. It was delicious, and was integral to flavor and texture.

This dish would be great served the next day ~ for a picnic for a group, etc. It is refreshingly light, yet filling, for a warm Spring day (like yesterday!).

For Randi ~ Indian by Intuition: a Recipe

Dear Randi ~

I was quite flattered by your recent blog post. As any blogger can do, I choose the face I put forward and the voice I use. Intentionality and mindfulness are practices I work on a great deal in my life, so they're an obvious focus of my writing.

(And, by the way, my personal blog is open and ready for business again after a brief .. re-collecting. (-; )

For cooking, as with any skill (such as writing plays or teaching students), I think it takes passion and practice. I can't help but cook because I love it. And by cooking, I get better at cooking. It is possible to hone your intuition. I had the great honor and luck to work with incredible, intuitive chefs weekly for several years at Three Stone Hearth kitchen. Simply by their presence and rapport with ingredients, Jessica Prentice, Porsche Combash, and Misa Koketsu, taught me volumes that textbooks could never attempt. I paid as close attention as my wits could muster.

One seemingly intuitive trick that Jessica taught me was about choosing ingredients that complement one another: pay attention to the produce and meats, spices and herbs, and fats, used by a particular regional/cultural cuisine. If you want to use coconut, for instance, it helps to start with cuisines in which coconuts are used commonly ~ say, Thai and not Irish. Then use the spices that that particular cuisine uses regularly ~ like lemongrass and ginger. Certain cultures (because of beliefs) would never use pork products in their dishes. Countries located by the ocean use a lot of seafood. A country's location on the globe affects the things they have had on hand down through the culinary ages. With our modern mechanized food system, that gives us watermelon and basil in January, it can take a little sleuthing to learn who traditionally ate what, where, when, and why. And that's where recipes and the internet are very useful ~ to learn these details. Once you know roughly the foods different cuisines use together with success, it is easier to browse the produce stands and your cupboards and know what will work together.

Porsche taught me about honing your intuition with measurements. Start with recipes. Every time you take a measurement ~ for instance, 1/4 tsp of cinnamon, dump it into your hand and get to know it until you can tell what a quarter tsp looks like without the measuring device. ~ It's ok to double check! After a while, you will gain confidence in seasoning things without thinking about the measuring spoons.

And in a day-long croissant-making session, Misa inadvertently taught me that there is really no substitute for.. experience. In a single afternoon, there is simply only so much one can learn about a skill that takes a career's worth of work to master.

And now on to the recipe.
Last night I had a craving for comforting Indian-style creamy sauce. I had in my cabinet:
a large sweet potato,
two small white potatoes,
a large onion,
and a jar of coconut milk.
I also had brown rice.
Coconut oil,
Butter,
Sea salt,
Plus spices:
Cumin
Coriander
Powdered ginger
Turmeric
Cinnamon
Fennel seeds, and
Cayenne.
So I put the brown rice, water, and a tablespoon of coconut oil in a pot to cook, following the instructions on the package (takes an hour). I chopped the onion into pieces about as big as my thumbnail, and cut the potatoes into slices about the width of my pinky, and then quartered the bigger slices. I put a couple tablespoons of butter in a cast iron Dutch oven and turned the heat to medium-low. For time's sake, I threw all the veggies in at once. Then I bathed my daughter (you can skip this step; it's optional (-; ). Since they were on a pretty low heat, I didn't worry, and just glanced in to see them steaming every now and then. When Anjali was dry and in her favorite handed-down bubblegum pink bathrobe (which, in reference to your blog, Randi, I never would've kept if she hadn't dragged it from the bag and insisted I zip it up on her and then wouldn't take off for two days), I turned up the heat to medium, stirred the veggies, and stirred in: a tsp seasalt, a tsp cumin, a tsp coriander, a tsp powdered ginger, a tsp turmeric, a 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp fennel seeds, and ... a thorough sprinkle of cayenne (less than 1/8 tsp). I let these cook for about five minutes and then poured in a can of coconut milk (don't use "lite" - use the real deal! Delicious *and* good for you!!). I brought it up to an enthusiastic simmer and put the lid on. Stirring occasionally, I let this cook until the potatoes were tender. At the end I added about 1/3 pound of ground lamb that I had seasoned with salt and pepper, and browned in a skillet with butter. But this could be a delicious and filling vegetarian meal, easily. You could even add some canned chick peas during the simmer, and/or a couple handfuls of chopped greens such as kale.

Spoon the coconut-veggie sauce over the rice in a bowl, and savor for yourself after your daughter finally goes to sleep. (-;

And thanks for the inspiration Randi!